


7 Vargas

by cgf_kat



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Lance (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Lance whump, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Team, Team Bonding, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 10:35:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14830661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cgf_kat/pseuds/cgf_kat
Summary: When Lance and Shiro are captured on a remote Galra outpost, the several hours they're held turn out to be more than enough for the Galra to push them to their limits. Learning from and leaning on each other may be the only way to get through it.Shiro POV"I knew exactly what it was for before it happened. I wasn’t surprised. But I didn’t have time to protest much when they dragged us there first instead of straight to a cell. I didn’t have time to warn Lance, and what would I have said in front of the Galra anyway? Um, Lance, they’re about to basically electrocute you and it’s going to hurt?Lance is much smarter than he acts sometimes, anyway. I’m pretty sure he had figured it out, but it was still defiance on his face for the moment or two before they turned it on.It was a warning. It didn’t last long. But when Lance opened his eyes again after the first burst, after his startled shriek...that was the moment I remembered he’s a seventeen year old boy and not a soldier."





	7 Vargas

I watch Lance’s shoulders slump as footsteps fade down the corridor and out of earshot, leaving us in the locked cell. Are his hands shaking?

“We won’t be here long,” I tell him.

The Galra outpost is small and out of the way, and it would probably be days before anyone from the command center would be able to send someone out here to pick us up, once they even heard about the capture of two paladins in the first place. That should be more than enough time for the others to realize we’re overdue and come looking.

Lance crosses his arms, purposefully shoving his hands under them, and shrugs, quick and tight. “Pidge’ll have us out in a varga.” He glances at me quickly. “You think she’s all right, right Shiro?”

“She’s fine. If they knew she was out there they’d be bragging about it.” So she’s safe. At least for now.

“Maybe she could get word to the others sooner.”

“If she can get to the pod...they’ve probably found it by now.” We didn’t come in lions. The goal was not to draw any attention. But Lance doesn’t seem very reassured by any of that.

“Still,” I amend, “it shouldn’t be long. We weren’t supposed to be gone for more than a few vargas.”

And I wonder if it’s too much to hope that Pidge won’t try anything. She’s proven herself more than capable in the past, but this is different than when the castle was taken. There’s no backup in range, not for nearly a quintant, most likely, and there is no knowing what low-level Galra like the ones out here in the middle of nowhere will do to gain favor with Zarkon. We’ve seen crazy things before.

The outpost was supposed to be the kind of small, easy-to-hit target that would be good for gathering intel. Lance and I went in first to secure the secondary control room. Pidge was supposed to be guarding our exit until we called for her. We’d been hoping to avoid unnecessary confrontation...have her get what info she could and get us all back out of here relatively unnoticed.

We never called her. We were taken by surprise, and now one of those blasted dampener rings is clamped around my metal arm, rendering the weapon function useless.

“Yeah,” Lance sighs. He turns his back and paces farther into the small cell, shoulders hunched and arms still crossed over his body.

“Lance?”

He doesn’t answer. What he does is stumble enough to send him teetering into the wall.

“Lance…”

He bounces back up in a moment, spinning back to me and flinging his arms out. “I’m fine!”

The tinges of fear and anger in his voice suggest otherwise, and...I don’t blame him. Not one iota. Sometimes...sometimes I forget just how _young_ they all are. The other paladins. My friends. Sometimes I forget how young _I_ am.

But I have never been more aware of it than I am right now...or as much as I was ten doboshes ago when two Galra soldiers strapped Lance to that upright table and a druid threw the switch.

I knew exactly what it was for before it happened. I wasn’t surprised. But I didn’t have time to protest much when they dragged us there first instead of straight to a cell. I didn’t have time to warn Lance, and what would I have said in front of the Galra anyway? Um, Lance, they’re about to basically electrocute you and it’s going to hurt?

Lance is much smarter than he acts sometimes, anyway. I’m pretty sure he had figured it out, but it was still defiance on his face for the moment or two before they turned it on.

It was a warning. It didn’t last long. But when Lance opened his eyes again after the first burst, after his startled shriek...that was the moment I remembered he’s a seventeen year old boy and not a soldier.

Surprised panic. Pain. Fear. All of it was clear in his eyes for only tics before he did his best to blink it away, but it was enough to tie my stomach in knots and make my mouth go dry.

There wasn’t much more than that, and somehow Lance managed not to scream again. He strained against the purple energy bonds instead and screwed his eyes shut and his jaw closed, and an awful sound came from the back of his throat, but he didn’t scream. Almost as if he refused to give them that satisfaction again.

The Galra asked why we were there, if anyone else was with us, where the other paladins were, what were Voltron’s plans against the empire...then brought us here with the warning that it would go much worse for Lance next time if we decided not to answer. The Galra are far from above scare tactics - give prisoners a taste of just how bad things could be and give them a few vargas to ponder and worry about it. That’s exactly what they’re doing.

“Lance, really. Are you all right?” I ask now.

“I’m fine,” he answers again, with a little less conviction this time.

But though it may be scare tactics, the Galra are not lying. If we’re still here whenever they decide to come for us again, and they get no answers, they will strap Lance to that table again. And they won’t take it easy next time.

Lance is toeing at the metal floor of the cell as if he’s trying to find a weakness in it, focusing anywhere but on me. He loses his balance and tips into the wall again, and this time he stays there leaning into it for support. He crosses his arms to hide his hands again, but I can tell they’re still trembling.

“I won’t let them do that again,” I say, before I really have a chance to filter it through any conscious consideration.

Lance actually laughs. “Nice thought and all, but what are you gonna do, Shiro?”

“Anything I can.” Cause a commotion, make them focus on me...simply demand they do? Something. There has to be something.

Lance shakes his head like he can see what I’m thinking. “Why? So they can hurt you too? Or end up angry enough to kill one of us or something?”

“I can—” _I can try. I have to try._

“They’re not gonna listen to you! I know you - you’re gonna to start yelling at them or something, and it’s not gonna do any good and it might make things worse. They’re the _Galra_ , Shiro. When have you ever known them to not do exactly what they want? You should know that better than I do!”

He leans back against the wall again, having leaned out a bit to rant. “It’s okay...I-I’ll...I’ll be okay…and I won’t tell them anything.” He sinks down the wall to sit, just looking tired.

“I know you wouldn’t…”

Lance is right. I know that, but that doesn’t make me like it. I chide himself for not being the reasonable one like I should be - for the momentary lapse in judgement. I can't afford to do that.  Lance shouldn’t have to be the one to point out what’s only logical. As the leader I should be doing that. My team should be able to rely on me to do that, and here I am throwing out statements I can’t back up. What is wrong with me?

But watching Lance stare blankly at the opposite wall, my stomach knots again and I wonders if I can afford NOT to stop what the Galra are planning to do.

My job is to keep my team safe, too.

***

I try. When we hear footsteps approaching in the corridor two or three vargas later Lance’s breath hitches, and...I can’t just do nothing.

It only gets me slammed into the cell wall a couple of times for my trouble, and left dazed until they cuff my hands behind my back and drag me after Lance back to the other room anyway.

By the time I can get my bearings again I’m on my knees on the ground and Lance is already restrained. I try to get back up, but find some kind of tether attached to cuffs at my back, keeping me near the wall close to the console. I glare at the druid there, as if that will do any good.

“You really think this will help you? You’re wasting time.”

“Anyone can be broken, paladins of Voltron - even you,” the druid answers coldly.

“Good luck with that,” Lance growls. I hope I’m the only one who notices the catch in his voice, but that’s probably too much to ask.

“Get him down from there, right now,” I demand, trying to cover. “I’M Voltron’s leader - if you want to do this, you should be doing it to me!”

“Shiro!” Lance barks. No catch there. Just annoyance and a pretty good helping of _HEY-we-talked-about-this_.

“That is precisely why it should _not_ be you,” the druid sniffs. “If he will not say anything, perhaps after a time you will.”

I’m going to want to. I already want to. The last thing I want is for the druid to ramp that switch up, but there is nothing I can do. I find Lance’s eyes and meet his gaze. I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I’m sorry? Hang on? I’m here?

He seems to get it anyway. The fear is still there, but so is the determination. I think he’s trying to tell me it’s all right.

I don’t think he understands how bad this may get, but he’ll make it through this. I know he will.

But the very small part of my mind that still remembers I should be a normal twenty-five year old on Earth still figuring life out is screaming that he shouldn’t have to. He’s a teenager. He should be in school. He shouldn’t be here. This isn’t right.

The druid slides a finger up the console and Lance makes a strangled sound; his head snaps back against the table.

And wishing is useless now.

***

Two vargas. We’ve been here for almost two entire vargas; I know because I can see the chronometer on the console. I can see the sliders as the druid adjusts them and I know exactly what he’s doing to Lance. Somehow I don’t think that’s an accident.

I’ve lost count of how many times they’ve tried to make us think they were going to stop - doboshes of silence after Lance slipped into unconsciousness, but then they turned it back on to shock him awake and started all over.

He tried not to scream for so long, like he did the first time. But the first time they barely had it on. This time there’s been no mercy. I thought I knew what it sounded like when Lance screamed. But I didn’t. Not really. And I don’t think those other sounds that were once funny sometimes will ever be funny again. Not when they’re just going to remind me of this.

He’s screamed so much, now, that he doesn’t seem to have the energy for it anymore. Or for anything else. The crackling of the machine stops again and he lapses almost immediately back into unconsciousness, wilting against the table and the restraints. I can see his chest rising and falling too quickly from here - short, shallow breaths that look painful even though he’s not awake to notice.

I have to swallow more than once before I can speak. “You have to stop. He’s human. You’ll kill him; do you want that?”

The druid looks right at me and activates the controls again. Lance goes stiff against the table but I don’t know if he really wakes up.

I do know he stops breathing.

“Stop it!” I’m pulling at the tether holding me to the wall even though I know it won’t help.

They wouldn’t kill him. They can’t Zarkon wants Voltron, and us, and...right? They can’t…

“What are Voltron’s plans against the empire?” the druid intones calmly.

Lance’s eyes snap open and I know he’s awake now. And panicked because he isn’t getting any air. He tugs pitifully at the restraints.

“He’ll suffocate!”

“What are Voltron’s plans against the empire?”

I feel cold from the inside out. I think I’m trembling but I don’t have enough presence of mind left to know for sure. I’m almost surprised anything can make me feel like that anymore - that anything is enough to send me into that kind of shock.

But this thought. That Lance could die, right now, and I wouldn’t have been able to do anything to stop it…

Somehow, from across the small room, his eyes find mine even as he struggles for air that won’t come as his lungs seize. There are tears streaming down his face now, not for the first time since all of this started two vargas ago, and I think he’s trying to mouth something at me. _Shiro, it’s okay…_

No, NO, it isn’t. Not on my watch.

“Please…” I’m begging now, and I don’t care. Lance’s eye start to drift shut, he stops moving, and I’m as close to on my feet as I can get and I am screaming, and I don’t care. “Please! Stop, PLEASE!”

The druid releases the controls and the machine snaps off. Lance’s body pulls in a quaking breath automatically, but he doesn’t wake up again. But he’s alive.

The energy goes out of me and I sink back to my knees even as the druid stares at me. I can’t see his face behind the mask, but I could swear he’s smirking. “Anyone can be broken, paladin of Voltron. Even you.”

He turns off the restraints from the console and Lance falls bonelessly to the floor. He doesn’t even stir.

“Was that necessary?” I bark. I’m trying to hide how shaken I am. That I’ve realized they’re on their way to getting exactly what they want.

They’re not trying to break Lance. They’re trying to break me.

***

At least they let me carry him back to the cell rather than doing it themselves. I’m almost afraid I’ll drop him, as exhausted and shaky as I feel now, but it’s still better than letting them manhandle him.

I wait until the cell door closes and the Galra soldiers leave before I lower Lance gently to the floor by the wall. I all but collapse beside him once he’s safely lying down.

He hasn’t moved. His breaths are still so shallow...it worries me, but I’m not sure what to do about it other than keep an eye on him.

“I’m so sorry…” His skin and hair are soaked in sweat; I push the hair matted to his forehead away from his eyes so it doesn’t end up in them when he wakes up.

What now? I try to remember that we only have to hang on a while longer. This is not an indefinite situation. The others will come for us, and this outpost shouldn’t be a difficult target. For now we just have to keep each other alive, and keep Pidge safe. As long as they don’t know she’s on this planet, she’s safe. Even if all she has is her suit, she would be fine for as long as a couple of quintants or more, and she won’t need that long.

I twist around to settle against the wall by Lance’s head, still keeping watch on his chest as he breathes. Part of me just wants to sleep, but I won’t do that. I won’t let him wake up alone.

***

I’m dozing lightly anyway when the sound of Lance stirring wakes me up again. I nearly panic, but when I glance down his eyes aren’t even open yet. It’s all right.

I’m still frustrated with myself. What if I’d fallen into a deeper sleep? What if I hadn’t woken? Lot of good the doze did me, anyway - I don’t feel any better than I did.

I move away from the wall and back to a position beside Lance that will make it easier for him to see me when he wakes up. “Lance...it’s me. It’s Shiro. It’s all right.”

He shifts again and his forehead bunches. A soft groan makes him wince. It makes _me_ wince, too, and I rest a hand on his shoulder, hoping to help keep him calm. Unfortunately it doesn’t work as well as I wanted it to. It seems as if the rest of consciousness crashes down on him all at once. His eyes snap open, and the fear in them as he gasps punches me in the chest.

“Lance, it’s all right…!” I take his hand instead of his shoulder and my other hand moves almost instinctively to his hair. I stroke it back until he starts to calm down and squeezes my hand in return.

“Shiro...oh g—what—I th-thought I was…”

His eyes are wild, roaming around the cell, across my face, out at nothing, disoriented, and I can almost feel whatever color I have left in my face draining away when I realize he’s talking about the end there. When they nearly killed him. He remembers that?

“It’s okay. You’re okay. They were bluffing. Breathe…”

He quiets down and goes nearly still, but strangely enough he gives a weak laugh. “Hurts to breathe…”

I don’t really know how to respond to that. I just squeeze his hand again and sit with him. It’s a only a few doboshes later he’s tugging at me with our joined hands, as if he’s trying to use the leverage to sit up.

“What are you doing?”

“Help me…” he whispers.

“What? No, Lance, it’s all right, you don’t need to get up, just rest…”

His brow furrows in determination and he shakes his head once. “ _Help_ me.”

I’m not going to change his mind. I know him well enough to know that. I let out a breath and pull him up to a sitting position against the wall as easily as I can. He leans heavily into it, but when I settle against the wall beside him he seems to have no qualms with leaning into me instead. His head drops onto my shoulder.

Lance seems so...himself. The laughing. The stubbornness. For a while we are just sitting there with him resting against me and I almost fool myself into thinking that maybe he’s just...all right.

I of all people should know better. I _do_ know better. Maybe that’s why I’m willing to pretend for the maybe half a varga that he’s quiet. I know what’s coming and I wish I could spare him it.

His breathing has only just started to even out, deepen, and normalize again when it takes a turn for the worse - and for an entirely different reason. Now he’s breathing too hard, too fast, and it’s interspersed with whimpering sounds because it must be hurting his throat.

“Lance…” My own throat is already tight. “Lance, it’s all right…”

“Wh-what i-if they...come...c-come ba - ack…” he gasps. He can scarcely get the words out. Hot tears have started streaming down his cheeks. I push my arm around behind him and pull him close, trying to quell some of the shaking that’s started, too.

“T-tell me they...they won’t. Sh-Shiro…” he sobs.

I can’t promise him that. “I’m sorry, Lance. I’m sorry, I...I’m sorry.” Unsurprisingly, that doesn’t really help. He just curls into me and sobs harder. He’s so afraid, and how can I fix that when I am, too?

But that’s my job.

“Lance…” I take a deep breath to steady myself. “Lance, you’re going to be okay. Whatever happens...you can do this.”

“I can’t…n-not again. I can’t...”

“Yes, you can. You’re strong, Lance.”

“No...no I’m not,” he protests around a shuddering breath. “I just want to go home…”

“I think we all want to go home.” I sigh. “Being strong doesn’t mean not being afraid, or not needing people...or not feeling. You…” The more I talk, the more I realize how much everything I’m saying is true. “You _feel_ everything so much, Lance...the Galra would see that as a weakness, but I don’t. I think it’s one of your strengths, as long as you don’t let it run away with you.”

His breathing is starting to slow down again. His weight increases against me again as he starts to relax, but he’s still shivering and the tears continue even if the panic doesn’t. The crying is quiet now - exhaustion and maybe shame feeding into it.

“Your reactions to this are perfectly normal. You know that, right? There’s nothing to be ashamed of. I mean it.”

He doesn’t answer.

“Lance...listen to me. I’m proud of you.”

“...why?” he whispers. He keeps his forehead buried into the space between my neck and my shoulder, not looking at me.

“Pretty much anyone would have told them anything they wanted to know back there, to make it stop, eventually. You didn’t even consider it.”

He puts a little more weight back on the wall behind us, shifting just enough that I can see his eyebrows knitting in confusion. “Of course not...but why would anyone?”

This time I’m the one who laughs once, but it comes out half mingled with something like a quiet sob. “The fact you even ask that question just proves my point. But listen...if they do come back...I know you can't do that forever. All right?”

“Okay, Shiro,” he mumbles tiredly. The brief panic attack has left him more exhausted than he already was. I can hear him drifting off.

“You’ll make it, Lance,” I tell him again, gently. “And when we get back to the castle we’ll all be right there for you.” That much I can promise him. Because it’s true.

Lance makes a “mmm” sound, and he’s out.

No, I’m not worried about Lance.

I’m worried about me. I’m worried about what I’ll do if they try to hurt him again before we can get out of here.

***

I hate being right, sometimes. The footsteps come back less than a couple of vargas later, and Lance wakes up terrified.

And something inside me snaps. I carefully extract my arm from behind him and I am ready to shoot to my feet. My jaw sets and if it weren’t for this dampener band my arm would be glowing by now. But it isn’t, because it can’t, and Lance is grabbing at it, pulling me back to the floor.

“Shiro, don’t!”

There’s no strength in his tug, but something in his voice makes me look back. His eyes widen farther at whatever he sees in my face.

“Don’t, Shiro. Don’t do anything stupid. Just don’t.”

He’s still afraid, and who wouldn’t be? But it takes me a moment of staring to realize that a hefty amount of that fear is now for me.

“I—” It comes out in a growl and I cut myself off mostly because I’m startled at myself.

“Shiro promise me!”

“But...” How can I do nothing? But if I was listening to my own advice from most of the time I wouldn’t be protesting. This is a war, and we can’t save everyone, and we can’t always do things the way we want to. But...

“SHIRO,” Lance stresses, and I can hear how much it hurts him to insist so loudly.

But if I do something drastic, and something happens to me, Lance will somehow blame himself. I know he will. And that is the thought that finally makes up my mind.

“All right...I...okay...I promise…”

I’m supposed to be the one taking care of my team, but so often it seems they save me, too.

***

We haven’t been in the other room for long this time when the lights flickers, and the machine turns itself off. Lance’s shouting fades into pained gasps again as the druid tries to turn the device back on, but I’m already suppressing a grin.

 _Pidge_.

It’s only been...about seven vargas, maybe? Since the Galra captured us? I think that’s less time than it took for her to almost single-handedly retake the castle. And of course she didn’t listen to me, but we can address that later.

It doesn’t take long before I feel the dampener ring deactivate and fall from my arm, and I don’t second-guess myself for savoring it when the druid takes a step backward.

In an instant, my arm has cut through the cuffs behind me, and I take the druid down with a quick blow before he can react with magic. The purple spark of his energy dies away as he drops, unconscious before he does anything. The sentries around the edge of the room move in, but I make quick works of tearing them apart.

When Lance and I are alone at last, I reach over the back of the console to hit the control that deactivates Lance’s restraints, so I’m still close enough to step forward and catch him when they disappear.

“You all right?” I ask.

His face is wet and he’s shaking as he tries to breathe, but he’s smiling tiredly. “Pidge…”

“Yeah,” I agree, smiling back. “I figured.”

We’ll need to move soon, but for right now I am content to kneel here and hold onto him, just for a moment or two. He isn’t complaining. He rests his forehead against my chestplate and clings to my arms as if he can’t quite believe it’s over, either.

“We should go,” I say soon enough. “I think I know where they might have put our helmets so we can find Pidge…”

The door slides open while I’m talking, and a small figure stands in the doorway. “Already got ‘em.”

Lance’s exhausted face practically lights up. “Pidge!”

She’s across the room in an instant, practically ignoring me as she shoves my helmet into my hands and locks her arms around Lance’s neck for a moment. Lance looks a little dazed by that, but he doesn’t say anything about it; he just returns the embrace as best he can.

“We’ve got to go,” she says. Outside the open door I can see the corridor is dark; I think she’s shut down almost the entire outpost. “This shutdown won’t last forever,” she says, confirming my thoughts. “Their system will eventually kill my virus; I didn’t have a lot of time to write it.”

I nod quickly, pull my helmet on, and climb to my feet, pulling Lance with me. His legs don’t seem to want to work though, even when I pull his arm over my shoulder. Pidge puts his helmet on him for me before I resort to picking him up over my shoulder again. He grunts in protest, and I’m pretty sure his reluctance to be carried has something to do with Pidge being here.

“Get over it,” I tell him. “We’ve got to move quickly.”

Pidge is giggling, but something about it seems forced. When we make it back to the pod and we realize Lance has passed out, she sits on one end of one of the benches in the back and holds her arms out.

“Give him to me; I can make sure he doesn’t go all over the place.”

It’s the best option we have, really, so I do it. I lay Lance across the bench with his upper body leaned against her, and she wraps her arms around his chest like a seatbelt.

“You’ve got him?”

“Yeah. Go!”

When we’re safely in space and we’re not being followed anymore, I turn on the autopilot and the long-range distress signal and slip into the back of the pod again. Lance is still out, and something about the look on Pidge’s face as she holds onto him…

“You hacked their security feeds, didn’t you?” I ask quietly. She doesn’t have to answer that aloud; the face she makes and the way her arms briefly tighten around Lance are enough even without the short nod.

I sigh and take a seat across from her. “I’m sorry you had to see that...whatever you saw. Are you all right?”

“Will Lance be okay?” she counters.

“We’ll get him into a healing pod as soon as we get back; he should be fine.”

“That’s...that’s not what I mean, Shiro…”

“I know…” I wince. “It’ll take time just like anything else, Pidge. But he has us.”

***

When Lance wakes from the healing pod a quintant and a half later, Pidge and Hunk rally around him just as I thought they would. We’re all there - of course we are - but his friends from the Garrison are the ones making sure he’s never alone if he doesn’t want to be. Pidge especially, interestingly enough.

But when I remember the way she latched onto him when she found us, maybe that’s not so strange after all.

Pidge and Hunk do their job so well I find myself almost not needed - not more than a smile here or a hand on a shoulder there, among other small things - but I don’t really mind. Even Keith pitches in, awkwardly though he does, mostly through offering to train with Lance when he does start training again, and I’m proud to have a team that knows how to take care of each other.

I’m so proud of all of them.

The time does come, when I’m needed again. The day comes when everything seems almost back to normal. Voltron has been on more than one mission since the incident and it seems behind us. Lance is his usual self.

But one day in the training room Lance freezes, and none of us can stop him before he runs out.

I find him in his room, following the trail of armor pieces that he ripped off as he went. He’s collapsed just inside the door, struggling to breathe and clutching at his chest through the black underlayer of his armor. All of the white and blue plating is gone except one boot that he didn’t manage to get off.

I make sure the door closes behind me and settle beside him, wrapping an arm loosely around his shoulders and rubbing at his back.

“Wh-why…” he stammers.

“It’s okay...it’s okay, Lance. It can happen any time.”

How many times have I woken up in the past few weeks breathless and afraid something has happened to him? Or to any of them? How many times have I paused in the middle of a perfectly normal task on a perfectly normal day because there are screams echoing in my memory that I can’t erase?

“But I’m...I’m f-fine...I-I was fine…”

“I know...this doesn’t mean you’re not okay; it just happens. It’s normal. Did it happen after we got back…?”

“A f-few times...Pidge or Hunk u-usually...they…”

“That’s what I thought…”

“But it stopped! Why...why…” He trails off in frustration as he sobs.

“Come here.” I tug him closer until he calms down and slumps into the wall instead.

“So stupid…” he mumbles, swiping at his face to dry it.

I shake my head at him. “Lance, I froze the first time we trained; did you miss that? Are you seriously trying to be angry at yourself?”

He glares at me. “I didn’t have to go through nearly as much as you did, and even when you did that that day YOU didn’t run off and start freaking crying.”

“Not...right then, I didn’t…”

Lance blinks. “What?”

“You heard me,” I sigh.

His mouth opens and closes a few times. “Oh…”

“I’m human just like the rest of you, you know.”

“I know, I just...sorry.” Lance takes an uneven breath and lets it back out slowly. “So...this is...normal.”

I rest a hand on his shoulder. “Yes. And you shouldn’t go through it alone.”

His cheeks go red. “But...I don’t know...I feel like I bothered Pidge and Hunk enough a few weeks ago…”

“They wouldn’t mind; trust me. I’m sure they’d rather you go to them than suffer through it by yourself. But you can put me on that list, you know. I mean it. Find me if you need me, okay?”

He nods silently, and I give his shoulder a gentle clap.

“You too,” he says suddenly.

“What?”

“Don’t do it alone.”

“Lance, that’s different…” _I’m the leader. I’m supposed to be the one the rest of you rely on._

“No, it’s not,” he insists.

“Sure...” I say, noncommittal. I don’t think I believe I mean it, and I don’t think he does, either.

***

It’s less than a week later that I’m passing near the training room, and I hear Lance scream. And in an instant I am back in that room and I can see him on that table and I’ve failed. How could I not have protected him? What’s happened? Why is he screaming?

I’m sprinting toward the source of the sound and my heart is pounding in my ears and I realize, just before I round the corner into the training room, that everything I’m thinking is nonsense. Lance is fine. They’re training. It’s just...it’s nothing. What’s wrong with me?

I barely have time to slow before the door opens and I try and probably fail to make it look casual - like I was just coming by to check on them. It’s Lance and Pidge in there, dodging golfball-sized drones that turn themselves off when the door opens, and then the two of them are looking at me and I have no answer for them when they ask me what’s going on.

“I was just...looking for…” What? What, Shiro? Say something. Anything.

I can’t. I can’t think of anything, and I can feel my pounding heart continuing to increase in speed and my breathing growing faster and I turn on my heel and retreat before they can see it.

“Shiro!”

I think they noticed anyway. Are those footsteps behind me? Which one of them?

I try to pick up my pace, but I stumble against the wall when the corridor blurs in front of me, and I can’t breathe, and—

“Shiro? Shiro!”

There are arms wrapping around me and a shoulder under my forehead as I hunch over. I latch onto whoever it is almost automatically.

“Shiro, it’s okay, everything is okay. I’m okay. We’re all okay…”

Lance...it’s Lance.

“I-I know. I…” _I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to do this for me. I’m sorry…_

Another pair of arms around me, smaller and lower around my waist. “We’re right here, Shiro.”

“Pidge…?”

Another voice, farther away, asking what’s going on, before the footsteps come closer and a large set of arms wraps around all of us. A fourth voice, awkward and hesitant, but concerned, and I would know it anywhere.

“Get over here, Mullet,” Lance is saying.

I make myself focus on Keith when he moves in beside me and loops an arm around my shoulders, trying to help but not get quite squashed in with the others.

“Shiro? You okay?” he asks.

“I…” What just happened? I’m standing in a corridor with my team draped over me like blankets, and it’s the strangest situation I’ve ever been in but…

“Yeah,” I mumble. I think my cheeks are flushing in embarrassment, but I’m okay. I’m more than okay.

Lance scolds me. “I told you not to do it alone.”

“I…” I trail off again, but this time it ends in a quiet laugh. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right,” he smirks.

“Uhm, guys!” Pidge gasps. “I can’t breathe!”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I'd love to hear what you think!


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